Council OKs 400-foot tower across from Honolulu Walmart

The Honolulu City Council has given final approval for a 41-story mixed-use tower across from Walmart on Keeaumoku Street to be built under the city’s transit-oriented development rules, which allow for increased height and density.

ProsPac Holdings Group LLC submitted its application last summer for an interim planned development-transit permit for the project, which is located behind Ala Moana Center, one of eight transit-oriented development zones established along the Honolulu rail project’s 20-mile route. The full council voted Wednesday to approve Resolution 17-333, which approves the IPDT.

The IPDT allows ProsPac’s tower to be 400 feet high, instead of the 250-foot height limit in the area, and also allows increased floor-area ratio.

ProsPac plans to build up to 429 condominium units, including 78 affordable rental units for families earning 80 percent or below the area median income, along with commercial spaces, parking, bicycle parking and recreational amenities on two parcels at the corner of Keeamoku and Makaloa streets.

The developer’s plan eliminates a separate entrance for the affordable units, a so-called “poor door,” by connecting the entrance on Makaloa Street with the main lobby facing Keeaumoku Street with an internal corridor that may be used by all residents. ProsPac had blamed the original plan on a design requirement, the Honolulu Star-Advertiser reports.

The affordable rentals are studios ranging from 248 square feet to 428 square feet, with four units located on each of the six parking floors facing the Makaloa Street side, and 27 units on each of two tower floors above the amenities floor that tops the parking podium, according to the developer’s plans.

Commercial space is planned for the building’s first two floors, with about 10,000 square feet on the first floor and nearly 21,000 square feet on the second floor.